Business environmental monitoring gathers internal and external data that could affect a company. Business leaders and financial analysts can examine that data to identify implications for their company and develop strategies for those implications. These strategies often mitigate threats or capture opportunities. Companies that better understand their business environment can anticipate and plan for changes, build more accurate financial projections, and allocate resources more effectively.

This course focuses on Finance's role in environmental analysis. You'll learn the types of data that should be monitored by Finance. The course then explains popular models for analyzing that data.

You'll learn:

• The steps in the environmental monitoring cycle
• The basics and uses of common-size analysis in environmental monitoring
• What to analyze: both internal and external, and from the industry level to the customer level
• Sources of financial business environment information
• Models to organize and synthesize environmental information for planning and decision-making

This course is useful for business leaders and financial staff who are involved in any of these processes:

• Strategic planning
• Budgeting, financial projects, and financial modeling
• Identifying best practices and benchmarks
• Product and customer profitability analysis
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Tax planning
• Setting owners' distributions or dividends

Course Key Concepts: Business environment, Common-size analysis, SWOT, Strategic planning, Benchmarking, Budgeting.